Need Selling Advice

[RCameo]

We are coming off the road in the next 6 months and going back to a sticks&bricks. Plan to sell our full time Cameo 5th wheel which will be about 5 yrs. old by then. We won't do a trade in, altho we will get a small camper at a later point in time. I have several questions for anyone who's done this. Is it better to try & sell it ourselves or sell on consignment? What percent does a consignment place usually get? Does it matter if we don't have a clear title or should we pay it off before selling it? I'm guessing if we sell it ourselves it would be easier with a clear title but not having done this before I'm not sure. If we have someone else sell it does that matter as much? And finally how long did it take to sell your rig...3 months, 6, a year?? Thanks for any advice!

[remoandiris]

If you sell it yourself, having a clear title should make it easier. I once bought a motorcycle that had to be paid off. Took nearly 2 weeks for the title to come in so I could register it in my name. I was nervous for those 2 weeks and will never buy another vehicle without a clear title in hand.

[bobsallyh]

I always sell vehicles, RVs, etc. myself. For many reasons. Nobody knows what you are selling better than you. I won't pay a fee for a consignment lot to sell it, if they do. The consignment lot has many other RVs there for sale and the sales force could easily overlook or steer a potential buyer to another RV. But pay it off before doing anything. A potential buyer comes to your driveway and is looking becoming serious, you pipe up and say "I got the title right here", let's do a deal. Advertise it thru numerous venues. Something that is overlooked by a lot of private sellers is level the rig up! Nobody wants to crawl in it, nobody wants to feel like they are going to fall out of it, likewise they don't want to feel like they are on a roller coaster walking front to rear or rear to front. Cabinet doors won't smack them in the cheek. Have everything hooked up. Simple to do and really very little time involved.

[horizon36]

I agree with bobsallyh and would add that you should empty out the entire rig and clean it thoroughly. Shampoo carpets, put wood treatment on the cabinets, clean the furniture, do any minor repairs, and major ones too, you may have been putting off, wax the outside etc. Price it fairly and advertise it. Decide ahead of time what you will take for it and where your starting point is. Be reasonable and you will sell it.

[2gypsies]

We recently sold ours through PPL consignment in Houston. It was a great experience and it was sold within a month. It was well worth it to us. PPL is different in that they really aren't salespeople. They don't steer future buyers to anything. You're on your own for looking and they even give you a map on where to find the units you're interested in seeing. They don't follow you around. If you have questions they'll answer them. If they can't answer they'll contact the owner for the answer. Our buyer flew in from Florida to purchase. One comment the buyer made was that he was pleased to see it highly detailed (PPL did it) and also very much appreciated all maintenance and repair history and manuals. While we were there dropping it off we were amazed at the buyer and seller traffic going through just in one morning. It gets a lot of traffic. They take 10%. They recommend a selling price but you name your own. We got what we asked and we figured in the 10% so really no added cost to us.

 

Having to sell it ourselves we would have had to put it in a storage lot, advertise, accept many inquisitive calls, set up an appt. to show it and hopefully they would show up for their appt. Then to demo it or even to show it with the slides open, we would have had to take it out of the storage lot. We just didn't want the hassle. We would highly recommend PPL. It's a huge facility with motorhomes and trailers of all kinds.

[Yarome]

Either route you take, if you're able, I would certainly get it paid off and have a new/clean title issued and in hand. I might be a minority, but I pay cash and expect a title in my hand when the deal is done. I've walked away from deals where there were third parties involved and one of those, "we'll mail it to you when the paperwork is done." Like most deals, once they have your money, they don't have a great deal of incentive to iron out any potential delays/issues between themselves/dealers/lien holders on the new owners behalf.

 

From a buyers perspective, I know that there will 'always' be just as good of a deal or better not too far down the road. It's not worth the headache, to me, so as hassle free as you can make it will increase your buyers pool.

[RCameo]

Thanks to all of you for the advice. This really helps. Since we don't know yet if we'll end up in a house with big enough yard to store the Cameo or not, I appreciate hearing from all angles. I remember hearing positive things about PPL in the past, but didn't remember the name until I saw 2gypsies post! For those who that did sell on their own, about how many months did it take you? Again, thanks to all who replied!

[horizon36]

The few RV's we have sold ourselves took a matter of weeks each time, but we were in So. Cal at the time.